­Like a cross country Tupperware party but with hemp this tour took us all the way across the country and back again. We visited festivals and concerts, even the Chicago Democratic National Convention, selling hemp products and educating people about the benefits of hemp and marijuana. We had venues where we had to pay to get in and we also had some gigs where we got paid to set up. We were invited into people’s homes where we'd set up a nice little table and give a presentation much like one would have if they were selling Tupperware. Those were the most interesting of all. The people hosting the event would invite their more open minded friends to come or they'd invite the friends who they had debated with about the subject in an effort to make them understand better where they were coming from or as a way to offer proof that they were right in their defense of Hemp. The interactions and reactions were always interesting as we set up for people from all backgrounds and all walks of life.

We tooled across the country in a black Dodge van carrying our meager belongings, our canopy tent, hemp products and information and tables to be set up at the various venues we visited. I went with a married couple and their three children, one just a toddler, the other two around 5 and 7 and more educated about Hemp than most adults. The toddler was still in diapers and their mother, being a good Hippie, used cloth diapers throughout the entire journey. She had a 5 gallon bucket with water and bleach in it where she would put the soiled diapers until she could properly clean them. Surprisingly that bucket never did make the van smell like a burrito fart and this woman, to her credit, took care of the diaper situation herself and never once complained about it. In point of fact, she was once one of the most loving and compassionate parents I had ever known.

We left California in the middle of June in ’96 and headed for Tahoe then made our way through the Rockies to hit Colorado then we scooted through Denver, Nebraska, Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin setting up our wares at various venues along the way. In some towns we were more welcome than in others. We were treated with everything from mild neglect to mild disdain and even outright hostility. For some people we were met with a sort of mild fascination. More than once we noticed that people seemed skittish when they would visit our booth, always looking over their shoulder as though making sure they had an escape route should anyone see them sniffing a backpack or munching a handful of hemp-seed. This was before legalization was newsworthy and most folks had no idea that there was a difference between hemp and marijuana. As to the way we were otherwise treated by people, those whose homes we visited, we were met with a microcosm of the same. The hosts were always very kind to us, some too much, as though they wanted to make up for their doubting friends who would try and bait us with arguments we had heard a million times and always had an answer for.

Once across the country we took up an offer that had been made to us in Telluride to visit upstate New York. The Hampton’s, that is, Mr. and Mrs. Hampton, had a beautiful farmhouse and a nice piece of land. They also had a handful of children so there was much happiness and relaxation to be had by all. The kids, “our” kids, had been cooped up in the van for almost a month at this point and to be able to run free in the fields at this farm with other children was as much a treat for them as it was for us to watch them smiling in the sun and collapsing exhausted from play at the end of the day. The Hampton Farm was a place of such beauty and peace I could have stayed there forever. The Hamptons themselves had all the calm of Buddhist Monks on Holiday and the land was breathtaking. I didn’t stay in the house with the others, instead I pitched my tent on the property under the shade of a huge Oak tree. At night I listened to the crickets and wrote entries in my journal. For me it was nice to be alone. As much as the kids needed a break from being cooped up in the van, I needed a break from the family. Don’t get me wrong, they were a great family in a lot of ways, but they weren't my family and to be honest never having had one I wasn't sure I wanted one, nor was I sure I wanted one like them.

We left the peace, love and stove cooked grub and headed to Indiana where we had lined up a few Hemp-a-Ware presentations and where the matriarch of the family I was traveling with could visit the town of her birth and chill with her parents. Her conservative parents were a stark contrast to the granola-munching hippie wanna-be their daughter had become but they were very cool about us being there. Her mother made the occasional back-handed comment but her father just loved her, he wouldn’t have cared if she had three heads, she was his girl and that was interesting to watch. Being an orphan I found her interactions with her parents to be fascinating. In point of fact I had always been a watcher of the interactions of parents and their children. In this situation one parent gave unconditional love, the other gave love with conditions, some of which my sweet friend just couldn’t or wouldn’t meet. There was an overall sense of peace through compromise though and we took the time while we were there to get out and do other things that were interesting like play poolside at the home that ended up being, by the time we left, a place we couldn't wait to leave. One piece of Indiana excitement for us was an A.B.A.T.E. festival we attended.

It was called the Bean Blossom Boogie, it was a Biker Festival and it was the craziest festival I had ever attended. Having a gypsy disposition, most of the previous festivals I had attended were more fitting to myself and the hippies I was traveling with. I had been to festivals, Rainbow Gatherings, did some Dead Tour and even spent some time with the Circus. The Bean Blossom Boogie was very different from all of them, more booze, less bongs and boots instead of bare feet. There was trash everywhere with no “save the planet” new age types around. There was also shouting, fights broke out left and right. There was love though, after a fashion, when the music played people copulated right on the dance floor rather than favoring the tall grass my hippie counterparts seemed to prefer. Despite how clearly different we were we were accepted, after all, we were rebels too. We were out there trying to change the law and legalize a "drug." So what if it wasn’t meth, it was pot, the unifying drug that brings so many from so many different walks of life, together.

One thing that had always bothered me as one of the original Merry Hempsters of Venice, was that while working the legalization movement I frequently heard the argument that marijuana leads to harder drugs. What horse-hockey. The thing about marijuana is that is goes well with almost anything. If you smoke pot, it is possible that at one point in your life you could find yourself in a room full of people who do other drugs, from pain killers to PCP, that doesn't mean you're obligated to do all those other drugs, most often, folks aren't. Marijuana is simply the glue that binds us all together. It isn’t the marijuana that makes people do other drugs, it’s being weak-willed and in a room with a plethora of different drugs to choose from, that gets people. At any rate, the A.B.A.T.E. festival was a good time had by all, a little rowdy for my tastes but I’m glad I had the experience. I can honestly say I was there, I tested the waters and they were too murky with cheap beer for my liking. I prefer the clear waters of liquid LSD, mushroom teas of various types and the varied colors of the myriad of other entheogens I would partake in.

After all those murky waters we wanted a festival more to our liking and headed over to Minnesota where a festival was to be held on Lake Geneva, more hipsters, less bikers, thank goodness. We made our way into the humidity of Minnesota to be greeted by mosquitoes large enough to have their way with chickens and set up our camp. This particular festival drew a crowd where very few needed an education about hemp so rather than talking about it, we smoked it, a lot of it. The people there were really mellow, there is definitely something to be said for mid-westerners, a friendly lot with a slightly twisted sense of humor I personally had no trouble understanding or relating to. I wanted to pack them all up and bring them with me back to my beloved west coast. The bands that played that weekend were all very good, a young woman with a voice like Janis Joplin was most endearing to me. The biggest problem was the mosquitoes. One kid, a bit tipsy from the drink, fell into his tent and into blissful slumber so wrecked he forgot to zip the tent. All night long he was feasted upon by mosquitoes big enough to carry off a small child. When he woke up, he was miserable, only mushroom tea seemed to abate his discomfort. Damn, that was some good tea.

We headed back to Indiana, one last stint with my friends parents before going back out west. It could be a wicked long time before she would see them again, “wicked” being the latest word the kids had picked up while being out east. It was a shorter and more comfortable visit since all involved seemed to take comfort in the fact that we were going away, far away, and wouldn’t be back. We swung by a prison in Indiana where a friend of ours was serving time for possession of LSD and paid him a visit. He was getting quite good at napkin art during his time and was also learning to play the guitar. That didn’t seem to make up for his loss of freedom however and not long after we had returned back out west we found out he had killed himself in prison. His sentence was twice that of a rapists he had met during his confinement and longer than some of the people that were in for murder. All he had done was have a bit of LSD on his person, he wasn't even selling it or on it.

The next place where we were to set up our booth and extol the wonders of Hemp was the Chicago Democratic National Convention but before heading there we had about a week to kill so we headed back to upstate New York to the Hampton Farm. A good time was had by all. We had much to process by that time having been to that wild and drunken A.B.A.T.E. festival, visiting a prison and being nearly dragged off my mosquitoes. Again I set up my tent on the property and did a lot of reading and writing and overall enjoying my time alone. I loved the serenity there, it shrouded the farm like a blanket I could wrap up in, it was lovely. We prepared for our journey to Chicago.

The headquarters for the Hemp movement in Chicago were in the home of a guy who went by the name of Santos. It had once been a mansion but over time property values in the neighborhood had gone down, way down. The house had become a somewhat dilapidated mansion in a bad neighborhood. I loved it. It still had a stained glass window, hard wood floors smooth from years of use, carved wooden banisters and a ghost. By the time we had arrived we all needed to relieve ourselves and traveling with three children means you have to wait. I was told there was a bathroom in the basement but that no one really went down there, they didn’t tell me why. I didn’t care why, short of tying my legs into a knot I had no choice so I made my way downstairs.

The basement was all concrete floors and cool dampness, nothing out of the ordinary. There was evidence that someone had been living down there but hadn’t been there in a while. The bathroom was small, just a toilette and a sink with a small mirror above it. I took care of my business letting out a small sigh of relief and proceeded to wash my hands. When I looked up from my hands, sudsy with soap, I could have sworn that reflected in the mirror a grumpy little old lady was glaring back at me. I rinsed my hands and high-tailed it upstairs.

When I got upstairs I found everyone sitting in the living room, stories of our trip hung in the air along with the smoke from bowls that were being packed with fine Chicago indoor grown buds. There was a huge fireplace in the room with a mantle bedecked with nick-knacks and brick-a-brack as well as an empty chair which I occupied quietly, not wanting to disturb the conversation. I sat with my back to the fireplace and waited for a lull in the conversation. Once we had all had a pull from the bong that was being passed around I got my lull and proceeded to look at Santos and say, “So, did you know your house is haunted?” Santos didn’t seem surprised at all and asked me who I had seen. I mentioned the old lady in the mirror and said she had seemed somewhat grumpy at which point something hit me in the head. I looked at the thing that had hit the ground after making contact with my noggin and saw it was one of those Hummel figurines that had been so popular in my childhood despite the increase in price during that time. Seeing as it was made out of ceramic, I was surprised it hadn’t broken. More surprising were the looks on the faces of those that were facing the fireplace who had witnessed the tiny assault.

Apparently, the figurine, I think it was, appropriately enough, the Merry Wanderer, had not just fallen off the mantle as I had suspected. The wanderer had gone from the far side of the mantle, the side opposite to where I was sitting, and made its way at an angle to connect with my head at incredible velocity for such a little guy. I went to pick it up as it was still intact and just as my fingers touched the ceramic it shattered. That was the strangest thing I had ever encountered, even stranger than seeing that old woman’s reflection in the mirror. Apparently, the old woman didn’t like people talking about her. At any rate, my suspicions that ghosts just might exist was confirmed that day.

The convention was a fine time for us, we set up our booth and talked hemp all day selling our wares. The convention was probably my favorite of all the places we had set up our Hemp-a-Ware booth. It was like a festival with an edge. A festival on acid. There were protesters and people with organized agendas to push. People weren’t just there to party and listen to music and have a good time, they wanted to change the world and that was an intense feeling, one that is all but gone these days. A sad fact. Nowadays people just join a group or chat room on the internet and let their political opinions run like diarrhea out their pretentious, entitled asses but very few take any kind of action anymore and more often than not when they do it is extremely misguided and there is no thought going into it. Chicago, our last scheduled Hemp-a-Ware event was a bittersweet end to our tour for me as it was my favorite stop.

On the way back, since we had no Hemp-a-Ware parties lined up and no festivals to attend, we just camped out and drove. We made a stop in a small town in Colorado where we knew a man who ran a hemp business. He had a lovely plot of land where we stayed for a while. During our stay three tepee’s were erected on the land and one was offered to me as living quarters if I would stay and work for the movement, an offer I could not refuse. Like all families living in tiny spaces, by the time we had arrived in Colorado the family I was traveling with wanted their space just as much as I wanted mine. I looked forward to living in that tepee and it did indeed turn out to be one of the best experiences I have had in my life. I was awakened by the sun, sleeping with the moon and talking to the wind. I will never forget that tepee nor will I ever forget the trip that led me there, Hemp-a-Ware Tour.